“…the hush of autumn is danse minuet…”

 

 

Walk this way

 

The familiar path invites me, always in a new way.

I forget so much each time I turn for home.

Today this wood is a full mystery again,

full canopy shelters full magic for the wanderer,

warms an alchemy in me, my steps and pace precess,

becoming dance, my breath becoming breeze,

my sight becoming rays brightening all

that stretches for sun in the umbra moving with me, pausing with me.

 

The routine of life is a guise for the wonder of growth

and the resurging energy to sprout anew in mouldy places.

The small deaths are symbiotic in so many ways,

the round of living and dying is danse macabre for insect, bird and beast.

The gush of spring is a greening tarantella,

all speed, all blossom, all scented marvel—

the hush of autumn is danse minuet,

all languor, all afterlife of color, all bending toward earth.

 

I know my place, my purpose, my delight.

I am another life in this calm living forest.

I do not take root, I am not a caretaker, I do not give or take life,

I do not die and rise again in the turn of seasons.

I am a walker, a watcher, a singer of forest songs.

 

August 11, 2015

That day the buzz in the forest invited me to sing along.

It didn’t seem surprising that I knew so many of the words.

In my mind, at least, I was dancing to the cascade of tunes, turning from left to right

and back again to shoot those brightening rays…

   thus, I learned this poem of nature.

 

My poem “Walk this way” was published January 23, 2018, in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected poems. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”

“Walk this way” was published in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of the Aurorean.

“Walk this way” was published (October 2017) in The Four Elements: Effects and Influences, an anthology by PoCo Publications (Poets Collective), available in paperback on Amazon, click here

*   *   *   *   *   *

My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Lord of the Flies

Never more relevant…

by William Golding

click here

 

As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

© 2021 – 2024, Richard Subber. All rights reserved.